Category Archives: self-publishing

I started self-publishing in 2011 by putting up some short stories from trade pub where the rights had reverted back to me. For at least the first year and a half, I published a lot of what we shall call “random crap”, most of which is still online in one …

Having a career in self-publishing requires a certain mindset. Here are six things ways you could be wasting your time: 1. Print books Sure, it’s awesome to see your books in print. So you offer them for sale via CreateSpace, Lightning Source, Lulu or whatever. Yes, do order a couple …

I’ve made two posts with the title Should I self-publish? before, a few years ago. The focus of the first post was shooting yourself in the foot with the publishing industry which, once upon a time declared you persona-non-grata if you self-published a single thing. Remember that time? Ridiculous! The …

“Why don’t my books sell?” I get asked this question a bit, so I’m making a post about it, so that I can easily refer to it. Remember that I don’t have all the answers either, and there are people who sell a lot more than I do. How to …

The question of ISBNs in self-publishing comes up a bit. Traditionalists are adamant that an ISBN is “essential” and that it make you look “professional”. I have to admit to being a bit allergic to that latter word: “professional”. It’s a word that’s making a beeline for my list of …

Yesterday I had the pleasure to be invited by the New South Wales Writers’ Centre as a panelist for the DIY Digital weekend. In the audience were people who were interested in self-publishing and who were taking part in this event to learn the ropes. It was a good time, …

What’s with the dagger? Well, you’ll probably recognise this from the book covers of the Icefire trilogy. This is the original image. I used the path function to cut the dagger from the image, put it on a layer over the cover image, and played with the the transparency and …